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Salmon and tomato zoodles

Zoodles? See also: coodles. AKA, courgette-noodles. Going with the American/Oz mash-up, zoodles (zucchini-noodles), however. Because it sounds 70s and mad. A bit like ‘Zowie!’

Anyway, if you’re after a midweek munch that looks pretty and is pretty quick and easy to make, you’ll want to get your mouth around this. It’s got six ingredients: salmon, courgettes, tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil. And, despite being simple, it still feels a bit complex and sophis’.

The dish really benefits from the use of a Sprializer. A contraption I got for my birthday in February and which I was too scared to get out of the box until recently.

When I plucked up the courage, however, I discovered it was actually really bloody easy to use and now I can’t get enough of it. Yay. And it made lovely-looking veggies. Unless we’re talking about the bit that’s left over at the end of the er, spriralization process, let’s call it. Which you can see below.

If you haven’t got a Spiralizer, don’t you worry at all. Just use a simple little julienne peeler to cut your courgettes into long, thin (un-curly) ribbons.

Get the recipe after the pics! SL x

To make four:

Ingredients: 4 courgettes, 6-8 fat juicy tomatoes, an utterly pluckable basil plant (or just a packet), 2 cloves of garlic (or more if you put taste over fretting about stinking people out on the bus the next morning), 4 tsbp of good olive oil, rock salt and pepper

How to:

1. Get spiralizing or julienning those courgettes. When done, put your curly courg in a big bowl, sprinkle with rock salt and leave for now…

2. Smash up/grate/slice up your garlic

3. Roughly chop up 6-8 leaves of basil then pop in a bowl with your olive oil and garlic

4. Get your salmon in the oven. You could parcel up your fillets in tinfoil, with a bit of olive oil and pepper, and leave them to cook for 13 minutes on gas mark 180. Or you could cook the salmon to your own prefs

5. Time for de-skinning the toms. Get a pan of water on the boil. Then get yourself a bowl of cold or iced water. Make criss-crosses on the bottom of your tomatoes with a sharp knife

6. Using a slatted spoon, dunk your toms, one by one, in the pan of boiling water for 30 seconds each. After each dunking, plop your toms in the cold water

4. Remove your toms from the cold water and now you’ll find it’s a doddle – doodle! – to peel off those skins. Scoop out the seeds then roughly chop your tomatoes into small cubes

5. Pour your olive oil, garlic and basil mix in a big saucepan or wok on a moderate heat. After a minute, add your toms

6. After two or three minutes, tip in your zoodles and cook for two minutes or more, depending on how al dente you’d like them. I like them al dente so I cook them for two minutes